The natural joints and bones of the body often undergo degenerative changes due to a variety of etiologies. When these degenerative changes become advanced and irreversible, it may ultimately become necessary to replace or repair a damaged bone or joint. When such a procedure becomes necessary, the bone may be repaired with an implant secured with allograft material such as de-mineralized bone material or bone chips. Other uses of allograft material include repairing or mending bone fractures or shattered bones that may occur from extreme trauma. Allograft may also be used to fill bone screw holes made during an orthopedic medical procedure or chips in teeth.
When a surgical procedure requires the use of bone particles as a filler material or to promote bone growth, the surgeon may recycle bone particles from the patient (autograft), or use donor bone particles (allograft). Allograft is frequently used due to the lack of quality or quantity of autograft. Bone particles may be freeze dried and stored for later use. Typically, it is desirable to store these freeze dried particles under a negative pressure in order to prolong their shelf-life. In order to implant allograft that has been freeze dried into a surgical site, the allograft must be reconstituted using a liquid such as patient blood, platelet concentrate, or saline. Platelet concentrate (from the patient, centrifuged during surgery) and patient blood are desirable to prevent the bone from rejecting the graft and can be harvested during surgery.
Typical methods for reconstituting allograft involve soaking the allograft in a liquid. This method relies primarily on the capillary action of the liquid in the pores of the allograft. Blood has been found to exhibit poor capillary action when compared to thinner liquids, such as saline or water. This deficiency in capillarity may result in a prepared allograft that has not been thoroughly wetted. Thus, prior art methods require time to adequately wet the capillaries, or pores, of allograft particles. While allograft can be reconstituted prior to use, the need for more allograft than expected may prolong a surgical procedure.
What is needed is an improved apparatus and packaging system to more expediously reconstitute allograft with various liquids and deliver the reconstituted allograft to a surgical site, while ensuring a thorough wetting of allograft particles.